If you're wondering how pervasive billing hijinxs are...

[Anonymous User]

Very.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/ ... egal-bill/

[Ruxin1]

Adam Victor doesn't seem to be ENJOYING DLA Piper.

[rad lulz]

Enjoy DLA Piper

[rad lulz]

Good looking out Ruxin

[reasonable_man]

DLA Piper being DLA Piper...

[Ruxin1]

Good looking out Ruxin

TY TY Bro

[Pokemon]

Eh... apparently adopting a different system would lead to higher agency costs according to one of my profs. Firms for example would try to finish a merger even if they find information that would make the merger a bad outcome for their client since they only get paid if the merger is successful.

[reasonable_man]

Eh... apparently adopting a different system would lead to higher agency costs according to one of my profs. Firms for example would try to finish a merger even if they find information that would make the merger a bad outcome for their client since they only get paid if the merger is successful.

This isn't about the billing process. Hourly billing isn't perfect (as a whole). This is about a problem that is pervasive in biglaw. Overbilling in biglaw runs rampant. Its out of control. One only needs to litigate with or against a few biglaw firms to realize just how out of control the bills can be on routine cases. I'm currently handling a fairly sizable tort case where the insurer brought in a big law firm to "back us up" because we are a small firm. The clients refuse to speak to the biglaw attorneys alone and have zero trust for them. And it doesn't help when you take a step back and realize that we are litigating the entire case, the big firm is "observing" and somehow they are charging more hours at a higher fee than my firm and are just watching the case unfold. Its sort of sickening.

[Anonymous User]

Eh... apparently adopting a different system would lead to higher agency costs according to one of my profs. Firms for example would try to finish a merger even if they find information that would make the merger a bad outcome for their client since they only get paid if the merger is successful.

This isn't about the billing process. Hourly billing isn't perfect (as a whole). This is about a problem that is pervasive in biglaw. Overbilling in biglaw runs rampant. Its out of control. One only needs to litigate with or against a few biglaw firms to realize just how out of control the bills can be on routine cases. I'm currently handling a fairly sizable tort case where the insurer brought in a big law firm to "back us up" because we are a small firm. The clients refuse to speak to the biglaw attorneys alone and have zero trust for them. And it doesn't help when you take a step back and realize that we are litigating the entire case, the big firm is "observing" and somehow they are charging more hours at a higher fee than my firm and are just watching the case unfold. Its sort of sickening.

I think small firms also inflate their hours, at least the ones I have interacted with do. Sure, they charge less. I think the problem with the billable hour is that unless people are keeping track of their timeas they go (which it seems that many people do not), they are very bad at estimating how long something took hours or days later. They think, 'well, I was here for 12 hours, and I worked about 10 (likely an overestimate), so let me apportion the work that I did to equal 10 hours.' That kind of thinking happens at big and small firms. I actually recently consulted a lawyer at a small firm for something and just got the bill, which was for double what I expected and it listed things I wasn't even sure why the lawyer would have done (like writing emails when there was no need to, making an apparent .5 hour phone call that I can't imagine took that long - plus our one-hour consultation started 15 minutes late bc of the lawyer yet I still got charged for the whole hour). My mother, a big firm lawyer, told me to just pay it. My other experience with a small firm lawyer was also like this.

If you're saying big firms inflate their hours by doing lots of unnecessary work (like doctors who order extra medical tests just so they're not sued for malpractice) and small firms don't do this, that I cannot comment on except that some of that appeared to be happening in my most recent experience.

[quakeroats]

This really shouldn't surprise anyone. When you make money by billing hours, the incentive is to bill as many hours as possible. Add to this a weak enforcement mechanism to check that incentive, and you get the current state of affairs.